By Richard M. Kavuma
an 14 - 20, 2004
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In the end it was like one big family meeting: the president, his wife and 2,000 children. President Museveni has a face for all appearances and for this mostly teenage audience, he cut the posture of a liberal but firm father. He made a concession at the very start, the audience correcting him that they were not �children� but youth � never mind that some were barely five years old. �Sex is the most ordinary thing in the world. Even dogs have sex; even cows, even butterflies have sex,� the President said, drawing a thunderous roar � a mixture of pious agreement and youthful protest.
Museveni had just arrived at Kampala�s International Conference Centre to close the 13th annual youth conference. For twelve years now, thousands of youths have annually gathered at the Nile Hotel for the �youth conference�, organised by the Uganda Youth Forum (UYF). Initiated by First Lady Janet Museveni, the conference has become a key date on the city�s December holiday calendar, especially for secondary school students. Given that Uganda has since the early 90s been battling the HIV/Aids scourge that is mostly destroying the youth, it is curiously encouraging that so many young people spend a week each year listening to pro-life messages. And it was encouraging that for much of the conference, only a negligible minority spent time chatting outside the conference hall. At the time that UYF was conceived, Mrs Museveni told this year�s conference, there was so much death, confusion and desperation among parents. The first generation of Aids victims was massively dying off. So much death by this indomitable � yet barely understood � disease caused extreme concern. Perhaps Aids was caused by witchcraft; perhaps one could catch Aids by being in the company of a patient or shaking hands with them. Perhaps Aids was spread by some mosquito, just like malaria. When the answers were provided, Mrs Museveni said, she and other women decided they could not flee into exile as they had fled Idi Amin and Obote. This was a battle that had to be tackled head-on. �We decided to gather the children of Uganda and tell them that they can live free of HIV/Aids.� The first lady then raised her eyes and looked her audience �in the eye� and repeated the great message of the conferences: abstain from premarital sex. �This is your battle. You have got to decide whether to say no [to sex] and live, or to say yes and perish.� That is the message that the youth conference has been preaching to the young people. At the beginning of the conference some of the participants told The Monitor why they were attending the conference: Philbert, 14, hoped the conference would inspire him to improve his behaviour; he wanted to know more about religion and what God has planned for him. He would also meet friends at the conference centre. An O-level student at Namilyango College, Philbert said his parents had facilitated him to be at Nile Hotel but �some other� participants just want to get away from home. At 19, Davis is aware that he is an adolescent vulnerable to temptations of sexual nature. He hoped the conference would strengthen him by listening to people who have �passed through these things.� Davis also expected to meet friends who he has not seen for a while since it is S.6 vacation, and make new ones. Linda, 19, hopes to learn more about how she is supposed to live as a young person. She hopes to renew her resolve as regards abstaining from sex. She should also grow up knowing Jesus Christ and she also hopes to meet some of her old school friends. A day after the conference these young people had had enough time to think about what they gained from the conference. Linda came out inspired to strive for chastity - to defer sex till she gets married. She will continue to have friends but they must help � not destroy her spiritually. Linda joined up with friends and they performed a song at the conference. |
� 2004 The Monitor Publications
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